VIRTUALISATION IN LEARNING

1. Riverview VIRTUALISATION IN LEARNING Roseville College Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College

2. Agenda • Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop– Roseville College (James Stewart) • VMWare View – Riverview (Alex Gibson) • VMWare View vs Citrix XenApp trial – Monte Sant’ Angelo (Mark McLennan) • Question and Answers

3. Roseville COLLEGE

4. Why Virtualisation? • Each student has their own laptop (BYOT), so lack of SOE exists • Recognition that whilst in theory it is nice that students choose the appropriate application to create a piece of work that demonstrates their understanding of a concept, the reality is that standard application suits are necessary to teach certain subjects • Music • Sibelius • Acid • TAS • Photoshop • Illustrator

5. Why Virtualisation? • Not feasible to try and install each piece of software on individual machines • How do we handle students who lose their laptop and bring another home device. Lesson interruptions to reinstall software • No guarantee that student machines have the capabilities to run large software suites such as Creative Suite CS6 • Licencing restrictions. Many software vendors don’t allow the installation of educational software on student personal devices

6. Our Requirements • The main requirement was to provide virtualisation at the application layer, not desktop layer. A big focus of BYOT is personalisation of learning, and we wanted virtual applications to be more of an extension of the student’s laptop, not found on a remote desktop. • Needed to handed a whole year group (max 120 students) simultaneously with minimal performance drop • Needed to be able to run large, graphics and multimedia based applications (Adobe CS6, Acid)

7. Our Requirements • Needed to work seamless both onsite and over the Internet at home (assuming at least a good 3G or DSL line at home) • Fast application loading • Application preference remembering • Support of local hardware, including saving to local computer hard drives, webcam and USB support • Web portal for application access, as well as ability to use local shortcuts • Compatible with iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and Chrome OS.

8. Why CITRIX • NetStrategy tasked withinvestigating current and upcoming technologies in mid-2012 and to demonstrate to Roseville College a pilot build that best met the stated requirements • A hybrid solution of Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop running on VMWare VSphere server backend proposed • Primary reason for Citrix is that is allowed for application virtualisation focus, whereas Windows Remote Desktop and VMWare View were more traditional desktop focused

9. INFRASTRUCTURE • 3 x Dell R720 servers • Dual Xeon E-2690 2.9Ghz CPUs, 256Gb RAM, dual 10GB NICs, dual 600Gb SAS local HDDs • 1 x Dell EqualLogic PS6110XS SAS/SSD Hybrid SAN (13TB storage) • Citrix XenDesktop Concurrent Enterprise Licence for 120 users • Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services • NetStrategy Professional Services

10. INFRASTRUCTURE • XenApp(Windows 2008 R2) is used for: • Simple applications that don’t require isolation such as Microsoft Office, Geometer’sSketchPad, Inspiration • XenDesktop(Windows 7) is used for: • More complex applications that require isolation, such as Creative Suite CS6 (which requires administrative rights on XenApp), • Heavy multimedia apps that require driver level access to the OS such as Acid Studio • App Store • Portal access that presents available XenApp and XenDesktop apps in one location

11. Supporting learning • All 7-12 students have their own personal laptop (BYOT) • 2012 saw 4 computer specialist labs at over 90% utilisation • 2013 has 2 computer specialist labs (one TAS, one Music) at less than 50% utilisation • Students and teachers are now using virtualised applications on personal laptops instead of using computer labs • Students can now access all required software from home on their devices

12. Supporting learning – Future • Currently investigating and testing changing TAS lab to a universal dock system where students can plug their laptops in and use their device with large widescreen monitor and graphics tablets for graphic design and multimedia • Investigating the use of Citrix ShareFile to work hand in hand with XenApp/XenDesktop as a shared repository available to all College members on all devices.

13. LESSONS LEARNT • Citrix is a complicated beast. You need very good in-house or very good outsourced technical services • Receiver capabilities differ. Mac and Android receiver versions lag a little behind Windows and iOS versions • Some applications just won’t place nice. Sibelius 6 is one such example • Its amazing what 3G networks can support • Students will always find a way to break something that you never thought possible, or can’t replicate in testing

14. LESSONS LEARNT • A well designed virtualisation solution is expensive, but worth it! • So far, it is proving as a successful alternative to a school owned 1:1 fleet with SOE

15. https://myapps.roseville.nsw.edu.au Demo - Roseville

16. ST Ignatius’ College, Riverview

17. Why Virtualisation?

18. Why VDI over TS? • Brian Madden paradox… VDI has become TS • Choice between operating systems – Desktop OS rather than App delivered from a Server OS • More flexible application support. E.g. Solid Edge • Ability to be flexible and agile about student devices. • Licensing cost (at the time). • In my opinion administration and management is easier than Citrix.

19. Re-Implementation • MacBook Airs with no BootCamp meant Vmware View needed to improve. • VDI boot times and overall performance was not impressive. New Setup: • Floating dynamic pools, using the local SSD storage. • Profiles sync back to SAN storage. • Always on desktops eliminates boot storms and speeds up time to connect. • VMware Windows 7 Optimisation guide.

20. Infrastructure/Benchmarks • 3 x HP BL490c G7 blades • Dual Xeon X5650 2.67 Ghz, 198GB RAM, 600GB FusionIO SSD local storage (91,000IOPS) • Current number of Desktops: 215 * • Max concurrent in use: 157 • Benchmarked max: ~210 (Win7 4GB RAM) - Host paging to disk (SSD) seen at around 90 desktops per host • Tools: VMware View Planner, IOMeter * 85 x Windows XP 2GB RAM

21. Impact on Learning • Efficient learning – accessible anywhere, anytime. Access to all required network resources • Move to BYOT – teachers can be confident in delivering a lesson using devices • Primary place for school work

22. Where to next? Making better use of our VDI • Extending life of lab machines by booting directly into Virtual Desktops • Deploying thin clients in some areas, e.g. Opacs machines • Wait for the technology to mature further • VMWare Horizon

23. VS MONTe SANT’ ANGELOMERCY COLLEGE

24. Why Virtualisation ? • Monte, a “Mac” School: • ~1200 Students • ~150 Staff • 1450 Macs • 2009/10 White Macbook’s (10.6.x) > 2012 MacAir’s (10.8.x) • Except for TAS: • 1.5 PC Labs (45 Win7 PCs) • “2D Design Tools” • Laser Cutter, 3D Prototyper • … And the Business Office

25. General Requirements Find a solution that: • Delivers the required application(s) • On our Network Infrastructure • Within our tiny budget • With the ability to scale up and out in the future

26. General Requirements Find a solution that: • Delivers the required application(s) • On campus or at home • Fast • With local and remote file access • With local USB (file and print) • Backed Up • …access to the internet… • On our Network Infrastructure • Within our tiny budget • With the ability to scale up and out in the future

27. Mission “60 concurrent users, Equivalent Application Functionality, For less than the cost of a PC Lab”

28. Process Vendors Write Criteria/Requirements Build VMWarePoC Build Citrix PoC Initial Testing Student Test Round 1 Tweaking / Refining Student Test Round 2 Decision ?

29. Defining Criteria • Environment • Delivered Applications • User Experience: • Complexity • Start up Time • Application Performance http://bit.ly/ZbbXDt

30. Defining Criteria • Solution Functionality: • File Access • USB/External Devices • Printing • Internet Access • Native File Association http://bit.ly/ZbbXDt

31. Defining Criteria • Solution Complexity: • Administrative Overhead • Application/SOE Maintenance • Backup/Restore and DR • Solution ‘Client Robustness’: • Performance over slow internet • …over ‘intermittent’ internet • Mac sleep/wake cycle http://bit.ly/ZbbXDt

32. Defining Criteria • Future Proofing: • Scaling up, Scaling out • Move to ‘cloud’ ? • Client Management • Solution Cost: • ROI • Licencing (Upfront and Recurring) • Applications http://bit.ly/ZbbXDt

33. PoC Build - VMWare VMWare – Horizon View 5.2 1 x Dell R710 – ESXi 5.1 (x5680 3.33Ghz 2 x 6 Cores, 128Gb, Internal SAS, iSCSI to SAN) 2 x Win2k8 Server VMs (On Production VM Environment) • View Connection Server • View Composer • View Transfer Server • SQL Server N x Win7 Desktop VMs Extreme x670 10Gb Core Extreme x350 1Gb Edge Dell EqualLogic PS6110xv Motorola AP7131

35. PoC Build - Citrix Citrix 1 x Dell R710 – Win2k8 (x5680 3.33Ghz 2 x 6 Cores, 128Gb, Internal SAS, iSCSI to SAN) 5 x Win2k8 Server VMs (On Production VM Environment) • Licence Server • StoreFront • Streaming Profiler • Netscaler • App Center Extreme x670 10Gb Core Extreme x350 1Gb Edge Dell EqualLogic PS6110xv Motorola AP7131

37. Gathering Feedback • User Testing • Student Survey

38. Decision ? VMWare: P: • Performance • Synergy (already VMWare backend) • Desktop/Application Management M: • Boot up time • Another SOE • Scalable limit I: • Teach ‘Windows Skills’ • Horizon Suite Citrix: P: • Seamless • Fast start up • XenApp and XenDesktop • Theoretically scales well M: • Fine tuning applications • Whole new backend to maintain I: • Citrix ecosystem of products

39. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Alex Gibson – awgibson@riverview.nsw.edu.au James Stewart – jstewart@roseville.nsw.edu.au Mark McLennan - mmclennan@monte.nsw.edu.au